
After some 15 years of defining leadership at Workers Health & Safety Centre (WHSC), Wayne Samuelson, Board of Director’s President and Chair has decided it’s time to step down.
Samuelson who will remain on the Board of Directors as President Emeritus, observes, “Our work to support hard-won worker health and safety rights through effective training has never been more important. Although we have made many amazing gains, far too many workers remain vulnerable to significant, unchecked hazards and imposter training delivery methods. So, while I am happy to let others lead now, I will continue contributing where I can. I am retiring from a position, not the fight.”
The fight for justice in Ontario workplaces and communities is one Samuelson first joined in 1971, as an activist, then executive board member and ultimately President of then-United Rubber Workers (URW) Local 677 until 1990 (URW would later merge with the United Steelworkers in 1995). Samuelson took a similar path to leadership at the Waterloo Regional Labour Council during the late 1970s and early 1980s. During his tenure at the labour council, he was also elected to Kitchener City Council and Waterloo Regional Council representing Chicopee Ward, where he served for three years.
Invaluable OHS gains for Ontario workers
Samuelson joined the staff of Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) in 1990 as the Political Education Director. In 1997 OFL delegates elected him President. The next 12 years would see Samuelson lead several successful occupational health and safety (OHS) and workers’ compensation campaigns on behalf of Ontario workers. Their many achievements included:
- Public recognition of the occupational disease epidemic suffered by Ontario workers.
- Recognition too of the important link between worker, community and ecological health.
- Elimination of time limits for occupational disease claims.
- Specialized training for workers’ compensation claims adjudicators.
- Government commitment to annually update enforceable occupational exposure levels (OELs) for hazardous substances to those recommended by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), resulting in over 200 lower OELs since 2004.
- Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) coverage for agricultural workers previously excluded from OHSA.
- Comprehensive guidelines and resources for prevention of musculoskeletal disorders, around which WHSC would later develop equally comprehensive training programs.
- Enshrining the precautionary principle in Ontario’s public health legislation.
- Introduction of important OHSA changes to promote essential protections for workplace violence and harassment.
Advancing training standards and WHSC’s unique role
Shortly after Samuelson stepped down from the OFL presidency in 2009 he was elected WHSC President and Chair. He immediately helped advance the cause for strengthened joint health and safety committee Certification training standards, one he had taken up in his last years at the OFL. With Samuelson’s help the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), then responsible for OHS prevention, training standards and the Health and Safety Associations, was convinced to establish a bipartite process aimed at building consensus on much needed improvements to Certification training standards. This consensus was reached and approved by the WSIB just as the provincial government was considering wide-sweeping recommendations from a year long review of Ontario’s health and safety prevention system. The review and its recommendations would trigger substantive legislative changes, not the least of which would see oversight of OHS prevention transferred from the WSIB to the Ministry of Labour.
“Changes in oversight sparked a perilous period for WHSC,” observes Andrew Mudge, WHSC Executive Director. “At stake was our unique role in the system. We were established to prioritize and meet worker health and safety training needs. Suddenly we were confronted by those who thought they could dictate our priorities and strip us of our critical role to not only deliver but develop the trusted training and information resources upon which our constituents and clients have come to rely. I hate to think what would have become of us without Wayne’s strong and steady leadership, helping us educate those in the corridors of power about why they needed to leave us to do what we do best.”
Marty Warren, United Steelworkers, Canadian National Director concurs, “Few have done more for working people in Ontario.” Warren like Samuelson also represented rubber workers as President of USW Local 677 early in his career and knows all too well what it takes to achieve and then defend OHS advances. Of Samuelson’s specific contributions at WHSC Warren says, “Our movement, the workers we represent and in fact all in Ontario workplaces need the kind of quality training the Workers Health & Safety Centre provides. We are indebted to Wayne for his steadfast stewardship.”
Forging a way forward
While Ontario governments of all stripes have funded WHSC since 1986 and our forerunner since 1979, it will take consistent hard work and vigilance to maintain our position in the system, adds Mudge.
Samuelson says Sylvia Boyce, United Steelworkers’ Canadian National Health, Safety and Environment Department Head and a WHSC Board member since 2013, is up to the challenge. Boyce who has also served WHSC Board Vice President since 2019 and a member of the finance committee was recently elected to replace Samuelson as President and Chair.
“I hold Wayne Samuelson and all he has done for our movement and WHSC in such high regard. I will do my utmost to advance his legacy,” says Boyce.
Boyce also brings considerable OHS experience of her own to the WHSC presidency, having managed many high profile projects and gains for USW and its members, including the Ministry’s review and subsequent improvement of health and safety practices in the Ontario mining industry, worker compensation for legacy disease from former experimental use of McIntyre Powder on unsuspecting uranium miners, documenting and compensating widespread occupational disease in the Kitchener Waterloo rubber industry, and the continuing pursuit for vigorous enforcement of Bill C-45 changes to the Criminal Code intended to hold negligent employers to account for the killing and serious injuries of workers across Canada.
Among the challenges before us Samuelson and Boyce agree occupational disease prevention, so called e-learning, the lack of several strong training standards that were the promise of 2010 system review and failed employer OHS management systems, as among the top issues with which we must continue to wrestle.
“To this end, we will be inviting our constituency partners to gather with us this fall and help us plan the way forward. When we do, we will also celebrate the gains we have made, gains made possible with Wayne’s invaluable leadership,” says Mudge.
“On behalf of all connected with WHSC, I offer Wayne our heartfelt thanks,” adds Mudge. “We are so very glad that he will remain on our Board though, helping guide us in the coming years.”
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